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The Edgar Rice Burroughs stamp, issued
Aug. 17, 2012, was also a Tarzan stamp.
The official announcement by the U.S. Postal Service reported:
"The stamp art shows Tarzan clinging to a tree by a vine in his left hand
and wielding a weapon in his right. Burroughs appears in profile in the
background. The depiction of Tarzan is an interpretation of the character
by artist Sterling Hundley. Phil Jordan was the art director."
The stamp is a "Forever" stamp, meaning that it can be
used forever to mail a first-class letter, even though postal rates have
continued to climb since the ERB stamp was first sold for 45 cents. Today,
the first-class rate is 55 cents, so each unused ERB stamp is now worth
10 cents more than it was when first issued. Tarzan probably actually appeared
on more first-day covers than ERB himself, and virtually all of the covers
with ERB's likeness on them also have either an image or mention of his
most famous creation.
My covers celebrating the Tarzan books, grouped into title
or theme categories. I mixed in a movie poster, too, and one foreign edition.
Each is paired with another stamp. The Apes-Jungle Tales cover features
a stamp celebrating adoption. The war cover has a Johnny Weissmuller stamp
from Romania. The Jane cover has a Margaret Mead stamp and Tarzan Visits
the Cities has a personalized, yet legitimate postage, stamp made by the
late Wayne James at stamps.com.
The rest of the stamps are mostly animal stamps.
In "Tarzan of the Apes," one-year-old John Clayton was
adopted by the great ape Kala after his parents were killed. "Jungle Tales
of Tarzan" features more stories of his youth. The ERB stamp, issued Aug.
17, 2012, is paired with a 33-cent stamp celebrating adoption, issued May
20, 2000.
Tarzan became friends with
lots of jungle animals, including those in "The Beasts of Tarzan," as well
as Jad-bal-ja, in "Tarzan and the Golden Lion." Giraffes are often depicted
in Tarzan movies but he never teamed up with a giraffe in the books. But
I teamed up a giraffe stamp with the ERB stamp for this cover.
“Do Something Wild – Collect Stamps!”
was the Postal Service’s 1992 theme for National Stamp Collecting Month.
To kick off the event, a booklet of 29-cent Wild Animal Stamps was issued
Oct. 1, featuring five of nature’s most-beloved creatures. The giraffe
is the tallest of all animals. An adult male can be as tall as 18 feet,
and although the average giraffe’s neck is over 6 feet long, it has the
same seven neckbones as other mammals.
The other stamps in the booklet features
a giant panda, a white Bengal tiger, a King penguin and a flaming
Tarzan visited the lost city
of Opar four times, beginning in the second book, "The Return of Tarzan,"
where he first discovered the city. The four original book jackets are
shown on this first-day cover, which has the ERB stamp issue Aug. 17, 2012,
and a 32-cent goniopholis stamp from the World of Dinosaurs stamp sheet
issued by the Postal Service on May 1, 1997. Goniopholis itself is extinct
but it is similar in looks and modus operandi to the crocs which inhabited
Tarzan's jungle.
Tantor the elephant shows
up in many Tarzan book, including these three. J. Allen St. John, who painted
the elephant onto the jacket of "The Son of Tarzan," depicted an Indian
elephant, although it would have been the larger and broader-eared African
elephant which rescued Korak the Killer. The ERB stamp was issued Aug.
17, 2012, and it is paired with a 6-cent African elephant stamp issued
May 6, 1970 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the opening of the
Museum of Natural History. The other three stamps on the same sheet as
the elephant were the American Bald Eagle, a Haida Ceremonial Canoe, and
The Age of Reptiles.
"Tarzan Goes to War" was the theme of this
cover, with books featuring Tarzan's participation in World War I ("Untamed")
as well as in World War II ("Foreign Legion"). Also pictured is the poster
from the movie, "Tarzan Triumphs," with a plot of Tarzan fighting Nazis
in Africa. Johnny Weissmuller, who played Tarzan in that and 11 other movies,
was honored on a postage stamp issued June 2, 2004, in his native Romania,
celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth. That stamp is on this first-day
cover of the ERB stamp issued Aug. 17, 2012.
Tarzan encountered dinosaurs
in "Tarzan the Terrible" and "Tarzan at the Earth's Core." In "Terrible"
it was mainly a gryf, a creature which was similar to the more familiar
triceratops. Also similar is einiosaurus, whose remains have been found
only in Montana and are featured at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman.
The name means 'buffalo lizard', in a combination of Blackfeet Indian eini
and Latinized Ancient Greek sauros. The einiosaurus stamp was one of 15
32-cent stamps on the World of Dinosaurs sheet issued May 1, 1997. The
ERB stamp was issued Aug. 17, 2012.
Some of the Tarzan titles
highlight the names of exotic tribes or individuals that Tarzan had to
deal with, and perhaps the strangest of all was the "Lion Man," from Hollywood!
In addition to the ERB stamp, issued Aug.17, 2012, this cover features
a strange, prehistoric animal, eohippus, from the 32-cent Prehistoric Animals
sheet issued June 8, 1996, by the U.S. Postal Service. The other three
stamps on the sheet were a Saber Tooth Cat, a Woolly Mammoth, and a Mastodon.
The eohippus was a small, plant-eating animal.
There are lots of ways to
describe Tarzan and "Magnificent," "Invincible" and "Triumphant" are just
three of them. On May 27, 2006, the Postal Service issued an oversize sheet
of 40 stamps celebrating the "Wonders of America." One of the stamps singled
out the "Rainiest Spot" in the U.S., Mount Wai`ale`ale, on the Hawaiian
island of Kaua`i, with an average annual rainfall of about 460 inches.
Tarzan, operating largely in the rain forests of Africa, had to endure
more than a few sudden showers. The 39-cent rain forest stamp was paired
with the ERB stamp, for this first-day cover postmarked Aug. 17, 2012.
Tarzan visited many cities,
including Paris! But three of the exotic cities he visited in Africa are
featured on the titles of these books. The stamp has the art of the late
Wayne James, a well-known ERB fan. Wayne had some official Tarzan stamps
made, legitimate postage worth 37 cents, and was kind enough to give me
a few. I paired them with the ERB stamp on this first-day cover postmarked
Aug. 17, 2012.
Jane was introduced in Tarzan
of the Apes and played important roles in several other books but was at
her jungle best in "Tarzan the Terrible," depicted here with a foreign
title, and "Tarzan's Quest," in which she is "onstage" more than Tarzan
himself! To go with the ERB stamp issued Aug. 17, 2012, I chose a Margaret
Mead stamp, which is somewhat reminiscent of the look of Maureen O'Sullivan,
who played Jane in six Tarzan movies.
The Mead stamp was one of 15 stamps the USPS issued May
28, 1998, to celebrate events of the 1920s. Mead was an anthropologist
who wrote a book called "Coming of Age in Samoa," the conclusions of which
are still debated among her peers.
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Charlie Delgado added some of his own
art alongside this Tarzan cartoon and topped it off with a postmark from
Tarzan, Texas, on Aug. 25, 2010.
Charlie's letter on the inside said: "I saw this Tarzan
cartoon yesterday so had to use it on a cover. Then I even remembered you
said there is a Tarzan, TX -- So had to send it there!"
Charlie's note was dated Aug. 17. He added a Calvin &
Hobbes stamp to the cover and mailed it inside a larger envelope to the
Tarzan postmaster, requesting that it be postmarked and place in the mail.
That happened eight days later.
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I made a couple of covers to accomodate all four of the
Tryannosaurus Rex stamps the USPS issued on August 29, 2019. First I visited
the Galvin, Washington, post office, to buy a bunch of sheets of the stamps
(16 to a sheet so it's $8.80 per sheet). I stuck the four different stamps
onto a few envelopes and got the Galvin cancellation with a first-day postmark.
Then I drove to Onalaska, Washington, to obtain another
cancellation, this one in red ink, on a cover, celebrating ERB's early
dinosaur novel,
But I'm not done. I have a bunch of other covers depicting
scenes of Tarzan and other ERB charactes with T-Rex. After I put a stamp
on each of those covers, I'll send them in to Stamp Fulfillment Services
to obtain the official first-day-of-issue pictorial cancellation.
Information about the stamps and depictions of the two
first-day covers are HERE:
Anyone who wants to purchase the stamps and stick them
on envelopes and get the special cancellation can do so by mailing them,
with a SASE for their return, to: FDOI-Tyrannosaurus Rex Stamps, Stamp
Fulfillment Services, 8300 NE Underground Drive, Suite 300, Kansas City,
MO 64144-9900. You have 120 days to do it.
The Postal Service also offers envelopes which already
have a stamp and the black and white and/or digitat color cancellations.
For info: 800-STAMP-24.
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The American First Day Cover Society gave a stamp show
in Syracuse, N.Y., and people came. The show, Aug. 31, 1990, offered a
three-ring cancellation designed specifically for use with the 5-cent Circus
Wagon definitive stamp. Aug. 31 was also the first day of issue for that
stamp. It was necessary to use five of the stamps to equal the 25-cent
first-class rate that was in effect then, but the cancellation wasn’t quite
large enough to hit every stamp when they were arranged in a row across
the top of the cover.
I don’t know if the Tarzan Zerbini Circus supplied the
AFDCS with a large supply of its business envelopes for people to use for
the cancellation, or if some collectors had managed to obtain a few and
brought them to the show with them. The Zerbini family circus date back
to the 1700s. The family, from Italy, operated circuses for several years
in Africa. In 1961, the family moved to the U.S. to join the Mills Brothers
Circus. Young Jean Zerbini started calling himself Tarzan in 1962. (Interestingly,
before Tarzan claimed his rightful title as Lord Greystoke and his given
name of John Clayton, he had called himself Mnsr. Jean C. Tarzan in Burroughs’
second Tarzan book, The Return of Tarzan. Jean Zerbini became the first
trainer in America to enter the ring with no whip, chair or gun. He learned
to control lions and tigers with voice commands and body movements.
At one time, Zerbini was actually considered for the movie
role of Tarzan, but he was able to make more money as a circus performer.
In 1967, he suffered serious injuries in an attack by an 800-pound lion,
receiving a broken arm and requiring 500 stitches. Nonetheless, he returned
to the ring the next day and to the hospital each night for more antibiotics.
Tarzan Zerbini worked with several different circuses,
including the Pollack Brothers and the Hubert Castle Circus, which he eventually
purchased in 1980 and renamed it as the Tarzan Zerbini International 3-Ring
Circus.
The circus suffered a financial setback, due to inaccurate
figures provided by the previous owner. But Tarzan refused to give up.
He sold everything and within two years paid everyone back in full. The
Tarzan Zerbini Circus was still an active circus in the summer of 2019,
headquartered in Webb City, Missouri.
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This 8x8-inch mourning cover was made and
mailed on Sept. 13, 2014 by Charlie Delgado of Ohio to honour beloved Tarzan
Denny Miller, who had passed away of Lou Gehrig's disease four days earlier.
When the Edgar Rice Burroughs stamp was issued on Aug.
17, 2012, I brought some covers to the first-day ceremony in Tarzana with
pictures of Denny as Tarzan and he graciously signed several of them for
me to send to some people who I knew would appreciate them. One of those
people was Charlie. In the stamp image Charlie drew, ACE stands for Art
Cover Exchange, the postal art club of which Charlie and I are members,
and LP stands for Local Post, an informal designation for those who enjoy
making fantasy stamp designs.
